Social Media is a relatively new career. There are a lot of people out there calling themselves Social Media Experts and some of them even are.

The problem with a new genre is that no one knows just how much a great Social Media Manager is worth in a corporate setting. That’s why you see people advertising on Craigslist for a “Admin assistant/Social Media Expert”. Very little irks me more than these job listings.

If you’re a Social Media Expert, Manager, Coordinator, Strategist, it’s really good business to know what you’re worth to a potential employer. Relying on information from sites like PayScale, who peg Social Media Management salaries between $27,000 and $165,000!, could really mess with your valuation.

So sit down, figure out what you’re time is worth, do some research and be prepared to justify your worth to a potential employer.

If you behave like an Administrative Assistant you’ll get paid like one. However, if you can provide quantitative proof that what you know will add value to the company you’ll be hired as an important member of the management team and treated as such.

As social media strategists and specialists we spend a great deal of our time speaking to people about the benefits of social media in today’s terms. We talk about return on investment (ad infinitum), engagement, authenticity, transparency, 2 way communication, social media vs marketing etc.

Very soon that conversation is going to evolve and it’s going to do it in the blink of an eye. It’s happening already.

The new arm of social media is social commerce and you can bet your donkey (insert synonym here) that if you’re not addressing social commerce now you are doing your clients a disservice.

For years we’ve all been going on and on about the power of the internet to reach people. Recently this awesome social media phenomenon has caused us all to get a glimpse at that power first-hand. When you look at examples of how “the little guy” has taken on huge corporations and won through the use of social media like youtube, you start to see just how powerful this tool is.

Take Dave Carroll for example. Dave is a musician and a pretty good one. While on a flight from Halifax to Nebraska with a stop at Chicago’s O’Hare, Dave noticed the baggage handlers were tossing his Taylor guitar around. Let’s just say Dave was pissed. So much so, after receiving no satisfaction from customer “service”, that he wrote a song. A song that has received international acclaim and over 10 million hits!

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!

Because of stories like this, every single social media service is trying to figure out a way to capture these 10 million eyeballs and sell them something. We’re calling that Social Commerce now. It’s the new black.

The trick is that all those marketing people with “20 years experience” have to forget everything they know about marketing. They have to forget to try to sell something and have to learn how to engage someone. (See what I did there? I went from a “thing” to a “one”. If you’re starting to see a pattern, whew!)

I was watching Erik Qualman recently. He’s a pretty smart guy and he’s a few steps ahead of the rest of us when it comes to this social commerce stuff. He points out that we, as humans, have our hierarchy of needs (he didn’t make that up, it’s a real thing 😉 Survival, Security and Socialization top the list.

We’re social. 78% of us will believe the recommendation of a friend. We’d rather have our friends do the market research and just tell us what the best product is. (maybe we’re also a bit lazy?) Anyway, having a pal tell us what they love about a product or service holds infinitely more weight than a billboard.

I’m sure you’ve seen the little QR Code symbols on everything lately. In some cases you can scan that code with your smart phone and see how many of your friends bought that product and what they think of it. Think of it as targeted (to your friends) market research. How cool is that?

It’s great. There’s no question. However, businesses who decide to use this technology have to be pretty dang sure that they have a firm grip on their brand both online and off.

Social media strategists and specialists are going to have be very careful in how they introduce social commerce to their clients. As with social media, there are tons of ways to mess it up. (ask United airlines)

So while social commerce is coming, and coming at break-neck speed, don’t fall into the frenzy that has given social media some bad press. This is where strategic thinking, research and an iron-clad grip on the value proposition of the company and their customer service is going to be key.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be researching some of the best, and worst, social commerce engagement examples. Stay tuned!

It may be an unfortunate commentary on society that including words like “moron” and “idiot” in the title of a post garner considerably more traffic than words like “success” and “charity” but it is a fact. Using controversial images works well too!

In the several articles I have submitted to Social Media Today I have found varying degrees of success. While my articles all provide constructive, useful information for anyone in the business of social media or anyone thinking about launching a campaign, I have found that the #1 way to get my articles read is to be somewhat controversial in the headline.

So, in the interest of continuing to provide value to the people that read my posts I offer you the top 5 ways to get your articles read.

First off I want to illustrate my point about headlines. The following are the articles I’ve submitted to SMT in the order they were submitted.

#1: The best way to attract people to read your work is to have a controversial title. Inserting words like “moron” and “idiot” seem to spark people’s curiosity and show that you write in the vernacular of your audience.

Often considered the father of modern marketing and advertising, David Olgilvy was quoted as saying: “I don’t know the rules of grammar…If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.”

That point works for both the title and the body of the article. Write like you speak and people will want to read your work. Which brings us to…

#2: Once someone has clicked on your article you have to be able to deliver the goods. If gathering clicks is your only goal then the title is fine (lame but fine) but if you really and truly want to provide people with something of value make sure you do so in your article.

A couple of really great ways to do this is to provide links to external information where they can find out more. i.e. I hyper-linked readers of this article to David Olgilvy because, as marketers, they may be interested in him.

The easier it is you make for someone to find information the more valuable you are to them.

Part of #2 is knowing your demographic. Who are you writing for? Is it the C-level execs? The marketing department? The Administrative Assistant? The small business owner? All of these require a different strategy so make sure you know who you want to read your work before you decide how you’re going to present it.

#3: Be authentic. If you’re writing for this site chances are you’re doing so to increase business to your own website or to garner some online attention for your brand. If you are able to provide value while doing that don’t lie about your motives. If you think that your own site can provide even more, useful info then link to it. There’s no shame in giving away good knowledge for the benefit of others. If you reach 200 people and one becomes a client that’s 1 more than you had yesterday and you may have helped 199 others.

#4: Don’t poach. (or, be honest) Look, if you come across an article online or in a magazine that you really think will help others make sure you give credit where it’s due. You could likely get away with passing things off as your own but why? How would that further your business or your reputation? However, if you find something sharable and interesting and you para-phrase it and promote the original post or article you look like a rock star!

#5: ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS PROVIDE VALUE. If you’ve read any of my other posts this is the thing I iterate and reiterate. You have to think about your audience and what they want to learn. When in doubt ask yourself if what you’re about to say will provide value to the reader. If the answer is no do a bit of research and find out how you can value-add to it. If you can’t find a way, ditch it for something else.

Once you create a name for yourself as someone who knows their stuff the views will follow.

Good luck with your writing. I’m happy to comment or read what you’ve done and offer advice or if you have something to add to these 5 points I’d love to have you do so. You can read this and all of my Social Media articles on my site Social Media Canada. (a shameless plug for my own company 🙂

Almost everyone in business has heard the name Ivan Boesky. The character of Gordon Gecko in Wall Street was loosely based on him and his Greed is Good philosophy of business and life.

There’s no arguing that Boesky was good at what he did. He was that guy who’d go in and take over failing companies, fire everyone, re-structure then sell at enormous profit. There was very little room for emotion or even humanity in the actions of his company.

He was one of the first businessmen to attain celebrity status as he preached his Greed is Good mantra to generations of business students all eager to lap up anything that would give them that killer edge.

There are still people in business today who live by this philosophy. They believe that chasing down the almighty buck is the American dream and shouldn’t be trifled with.

Lucky for us there is a new business model in town. One that considers Boesky’s 20 year old attitude to be not only antiquated but actually contrary to our nature as human beings.

In his book, Born to Be Good, social scientist Dacher Keltner has researched just what the Greed is Good paradigm has done to generations of people. How we have been raised to believe that attaining that competitive edge by disregarding the needs of our fellow man (woman) would ultimately lead to success.

Instead Keltner suggest that a “meaningful life” is akin to a successful life and that our lives cannot have meaning without some part of us thinking of the greater good.

Ok, now that the groundwork is there I’ll let you in on how Keltner’s book and some Darwin-ist philosophy have come together to create a new business model that will make Boesky-type success look so reprehensible that no one in their right mind would seek it out.

Here’s how it all comes together. According to Keltner, if you want to be successful in business and in life, you will need to stop thinking about “what’s in it for me?” and start thinking about “what can I do for you?”. In serving the greater good you will develop an authenticity that is missing from the greed model. Your customers will trust you to steer them in the right direction. You will create a stronger bond that will, in turn, create a larger return customer base.

So where does Darwin come in? Keltner contends that most historians and social scientists have missed a major point that Darwin brought to light; we, as humans, are ultimately sympathetic beings. We want to help others and, when we do, we feel good. We feel fulfilled, we feel successful and appreciative and are…wait for it…HAPPY.

I know it sounds a bit hippy-esque but anyone that says they don’t want to be happy is lying. No one wants to be miserable and happy people do more for society.

The great thing about social media and its application is that in order to play in the social media sandbox one must leave the greed is good idea behind. No one cares how great you say your company is. No one cares how many cars you sold. The “toot your own horn” era is over, at least in the online space.

If your site is not providing value to your visitors, authentic value, then you are not going to keep them there or get them back. But your competition will. You can bet on it.

As consumers continue to use the internet for their number one source of information, authenticity and accountability will be held in the highest regard. Making sure your social media game plan encompasses that will be the difference between a successful campaign and a lame one like, I dunno, BP?

The Social Media Canada site is dedicated to helping people figure out what they need to create a social media strategy. All of the elements are there, for free, for anyone. The result of giving away this information is a consistently increasing client-base.

Some companies are still have trouble understanding the return on investment of a well-run social media campaign. In an effort to take into account short attention spans and a general lack of interest in changing hard and fast attitudes we’ve put together a quick, and easy, piece here to show how social media not only gives a great return on investment, it now surpasses most traditional media.

Ok, so that’s how companies have traditionally determined if the cash they’re shelling out for an ad campaign is worth the effort. Investment takes into account the hours to create the campaign and airtime and anything else that costs them money. They then deduct that from whatever sales they can attribute to that particular campaign.

The 2nd formula is a bit smarter because it’s easier to quantify the campaign’s success if you know what your sales were before you began.

Now that we’ve got that sorted we can move on to social media. While the formula doesn’t change a whole lot there are a bunch of new parameters that can be included to determine the return on investment. Stuff that you don’t get with the traditional model.

Social media ROI can be calculated in a ton of different ways. Check this out:

ROI = (revenue – investment) + targeted engagement (new clients) / investment * 100. How many new leads has the campaign established? You can make a case for traditional campaigns doing this too but since social media is highly targeted you’re more likely to get qualified leads from your social media.

or this one…

ROI = (revenue – investment) + employee retention / investment * 100. Engaged employees are more profitable, productive and less likely to leave their jobs. How much does it cost to train a new employee?

According to the Gallup G12 poll there is a direct correlation between employee and engagement and retention. The same poll correlates employee satisfaction with customer satisfaction and loyalty. The “idiot” explanation of that is; If you’re employees like your company and business practices so will your customers. Duh!

Take the Old Spice campaign for example. Old Spice saw a 2700% increase in Twitter followers, 800% increase in Facebook fan page visits and 300% increase in traffic to the brand website and countless paradys, but most importantly sales of its Body Wash more than doubled!

Other companies have had similar success when they engage their customers. Engagement builds incredible customer loyalty and brand awareness but also gives users a sense that they’re dealing with a real company, with real values and real people.

and finally, my personal favourite…

ROI = (revenue – investment) + social good / investment * 100. This is my favourite because, for so many years, big business has focused only on their bottom line. Even the companies that have philanthropic endevours built into their business model have had little success in translating that to ROI

If you still don’t get it maybe social media isn’t for you. If the company you work for doesn’t see the value in engaging employees and customers, developing new sales opportunities, reaching target markets and doing some social good then perhaps they should stick with traditional media like TV. After all, no none is using their PVR and skipping all the commercials. Are they?

It was pointed out to me, by a reader, that while many of my articles strongly advocate getting buy in from the entire company for any social media campaign, I have yet to explain how that might be done.

Well, this article is about to change all that!

Anyone who has done any research on putting together a social media strategy knows that, without top-down engagement, the campaign is quite likely to be fraught with pitfalls.

In established, larger companies, there is often a culture that doesn’t make a lot of room for change. “We’ve done it this way for years and it works well, why change now?” It is this attitude that can break a social media campaign before it even begins. The world is changing at break-neck speed and failure to adapt is going to keep companies with that philosophy out of the loop.

So, how do you get the CEO on down to champion social media? I want to say “it’s easy, just show them the ROI.” but that’s not really the case. ROI, in a traditional sense, is much easier to accept. i.e. We spend $X on this ad and our revenues increase by $Y amount. With social media it’s gaged differently, but have no fear, I have a nifty chart that will help you explain how ROI in this game works.

The most important aspect of getting the exec team to buy in to the social media philosophy is to get them psyched about it. There are a number of ways to do that depending on the sort of company you’re dealing with.

The first thing you’ll need is a detailed plan. Executives love a plan! The plan needs to include how much it will cost as well as what the company has to gain from the strategy.

There are many reasons why C-level (CEO, CCO, CIO etc) executives don’t want to be part of social media; no time, fear of offending someone etc. However, if you can show the executives, in your strategy, that you can address these issues satisfactorily then you have won half the battle.

While creating the plan you also have to ask yourself “Can my CEO engage authentically?” Some can’t. Some C-level execs are just too wound up to think about the end user. That happens. If that’s the case you’ll have to work out a way that he/she can communicate with your client/customer in consistent, small doses. Small enough that the sentiment is true.

It may cost some brownie points but sometimes a gentle reminder to the heads of the company about company philosophy and core values is all it takes to get those execs to remember why they do what they do in the first place.

If social media is about humanizing the brand, the C-levels must be…well…human. If they cannot, or will not, engage with the client or customer then you probably have a problem. An executive team that has forgotten about providing value is one that will likely not see the value of social media.

If reminding them about the brand doesn’t work you can always try to point out the competitive edge social media gives any company. Perhaps pointing out successes a rival has had with particular social media engagement will work.

“Look at X company! Holy cow, that’s a message from the CEO on Facebook! And look at all the comments. Wow!” Most executives are in the position they’re in because they are very competitive. Use that to your advantage!

Ultimately the onus will be on whoever is the social media champion. If it’s the marketing department then they better do a great deal of research on the C-level execs to make sure they are able to approach them in a way that will make buy in a no brainer. Remember that humanizing the brand means using the humans behind the brand. Find the humanity in the exec team and find a way to leverage that to engage the clients and customers.

Some of my younger readers may not be familiar with this age-old euphemism often used as a gentle reminder to young, single women to keep their legs firmly closed before marriage. It’s probably not bandied about quite so much in this day and age as it was in the 50’s (not that I was around in the 50’s!!)

It’s the same with social media. So many people feel that they can get all the information they need to put together a successful social media campaign without going to the added expense of hiring a social media strategist to help them navigate through the process.

In some cases this might actually be true. For example, if you’re a very small business owner (1 employee…you) and you have a lot of time on your hands and you believe that you can put in the effort to grow your business as well as learn all the components of a great campaign, then maybe you don’t need someone to help you out.

That said, I’ve been in this business for a while and I learn something new every, single day. I wake up in the morning hoping to find some new tip or trick or strategy that will make me better at my job and that will add value to the services I provide for my clients. I spend a good part of my day plugged into the social media web of information. It’s my job.

I am focused on social media. I live it, I breath it and, much to my children’s chagrin, I am almost always connected in one way or another to some form of it.

There are sites all over the internet that will show you how to set up a campaign. They’ll give you the steps and the technical requirements of facebook, twitter, linked in etc. What they cannot give you is the personal customization that comes from hiring a pro.

So while you can download a step-by-step guide to developing a social media campaign for your company you will find it much more difficult to find an ebook on how to customize a strategy for YOUR COMPANY.

I’ll tell you what though. As an act of good faith and value I will give you some really important tips on where to begin. Ready?

1. know your market/audience. I can’t iterate this enough. If you don’t know who to talk to and how to talk to them, you’ll fail. i.e. If you’re a skateboard company you’ll have an entirely different language to connect with your customers than if you are selling life insurance.

Demographics, geographical location, where they hang out (Facebook?), spending habits etc. There are many more parameters but this is a good place to start.

2. make sure you’re company name is branded across all social media sites. If your company is called ABC Company you want to make sure that when people search ABC Company you come up and not some kid, on a computer in Alaska.

3. Give away information. Yep, I said “give”. Information is value so the more of it you can give away the more engagement you’ll have from your audience.

4. Get everyone in your organization onboard. From the CEO to the mailroom, everyone should be promoting the brand online.

5. Make sure you have policies and procedures in place to govern how your company and it’s employees engage online. SUPER IMPORTANT! It costs a lot of money to replace an employee. Make sure they know what your social media expectations are from the get go. Or you may end up as one of these companies.

I think that’s enough for today. After all, you’re getting a lot of milk here and the cow is still standing out in the field. (too far with the analogy? 🙂

“I have a Facebook page and I know how to set up a Twitter account, I can totes do the social media for the company!”

I shudder when I think about how many companies have delegated their social media campaigns to un-trained Administrative Assistants or low-mid level HR employees.

Most often these individuals were hired to perform a different, traditional role within the company structure but ended up, likely due to some rudimentary knowledge of social media sites, as social media marketing gurus.

The great mis-understanding of the relatively new social media space has left many small to mid-sized companies scrambling to catch up to their competitors.

While more and more upper level executives begin to understand the reach that a social media campaign can give their business few are willing to take the time to research exactly how such a campaign should be run.

How many CEO’s out there have had this conversation?

CEO: “Hey, we really need to get going on this social media stuff!”
HR: “Ok, we’ll get Becky the receptionist to set up a Facebook account and maybe she knows how to do that Twitter stuff too. I’ll ask her.”
CEO: “Great! I expect to see results.”
HR: “What sort of results?”
CEO: “I don’t know but if I don’t see something in 3 months I’m pulling the plug!”
HR: “Ok, sounds fair. I’m on it!”

This is the sort of thing that happens time and time again. A lack of understanding at the upper levels coupled with the notion that social media is something the kids are doing has lead to some serious social media fails.

The best example of a failed SM campaign I can give you is BP. In an effort to “spin” (a traditional marketing term) the massive disaster in the Gulf BP tried to use social media to shore up their shortcomings. However, bad advice or lack of planning had BP trying to use traditional marketing techniques (buying ad space, pushing high-production quality videos) on the public.

Social media is about engagement but none of BP’s media was engage able. They wouldn’t allow comments or questions or any sort of back and forth. They tried to control the message within the social media realm which is simply impossible to do. (i.e. “related videos” that were posted to the right of theirs were all negative ones from others).

BP failed because they failed to work through a proper strategy and left the intensely important social media platform to someone who did not know what they were doing.

So, in the interest of brevity (too late :), I am going to put down the Cliff (Cole’s in Canada) Notes version of things to think about when considering adding a social media campaign to your company’s marketing strategy.

Ready?

1. hire a professional Social Media Strategist to help define the goals of the campaign.
2. change your mindset about marketing. Social media marketing is not the same as traditional marketing and should not be treated as such.
3. create guidelines for engagement.
4. engage your entire organization in your campaign. All employees, from the top down, should be engaged in the campaign based on the guidelines you’ve created.
5. make sure you have someone who’s primary purpose is to oversee all aspects of the campaign.
6. use your professional strategist to help you set metrics to gage ROI.

Social media is not some fad diet that is sweeping the internet only to be replaced in a year or two by the next one. It’s here to stay. It’s a powerful tool, when used correctly. Assigning it to someone who is not trained or who is not consistently up-dating their knowledge is a grave mistake that could do more harm than good.

Since Paul Revere created a media frenzy with his famous ride through the streets of Boston, media in Canada has lagged behind our neighbours to the south.

I mean, how can you compete with a guy who is still famous 200 years later? He was a marketing/pr maverick the likes of which have not been seen since. Hell, even his initials were PR!

There’s no question that the American’s have lead the charge toward social media engagement. Sites like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter were all created in the American PR frenzy and we have ridden on their coat-tails, happily, for years.

Canadians and Canadian companies have long had to sit back and watch as their larger, US counterparts have pulled ahead through the use of marketing tools only available in the States.

Consider, for example, the pull of a Super Bowl commercial as recently as 2 years ago. A 30 second spot during the biggest game on TV cost a bundle but was worth a fortune in media exposure.

The Canadian dollar made such an expenditure a gamble and the commercials didn’t even play on the Canadian stations that carried the games. (unless you were lucky enough to watch a game in a pub that paid to have the US commercials aired)

Examples like this tipped the scales of marketing to the target toward American companies with little recourse for us up here, north of the 49th.

But then something amazing happened! Something that levelled that same playing field practically overnight!

Social Media.

Anyone could join a social media site. Anyone could market to the people who were part of such a site. It was a wonderful meeting of target market meets marketing strategy.

And what did Canadian companies do? They waited.

In fact, by 2008 an estimated 42% of American companies were already engaged in social media as a mainstay of their marketing strategy. Whereas Canadian companies…well I can’t even find a statistic stating how many Canadian companies were using social media in 2008 but it’s a telling sign that in 2010 an estimated 34% had finally begun to see the benefits of a social media campaign.

The American’s have hit 73% as of 2010. More than twice that of their Canadian counterparts.

The news isn’t all bad for Canada though. We’re making a run for it now, albeit a bit late. And to be perfectly honest, it’s likely a good thing that more Canadian companies did not run willy-nilly into the social media scene when it first appeared.

In fact, it’s very “Canadian” to sit back and watch everyone else make mistakes before signing on.

(let’s go with that as an overall Canadian strategy shall we?)

There is a lot more to this article but I’m going to publish it in another post because I don’t like to hit 500 words. So, you’ll just have to wait! (ha! 464 words!)

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This client needed a site that integrated with online travel agents and merged calendars for guest bookings. While the design is simple and elegant, the backend is very robust. I added an additional solution to give hotel staff on the ground the ability to take bookings over the phone or in person without sacrificing the calendar sync.

This site was created to compliment North and West Vancouver Realtor, Elizabeth Dyer's, growing real estate business. Liz felt that providing people with real experiences from the North Shore would help them get a true feel for what it's like to live in this amazing place. The site is growing daily with new posts and new tech like vlog posts!

I created this site for my daughter Layne who is just about to graduate high school. We worked on it together as a tool to help her realize her dream of becoming an Interior Designer. The site is used for post-secondary admissions and scholarship opportunities. It also showcases many of Layne's extra curricular activities.

Jacquie McCarnan is the National Director of Social Media and Online Outreach for the Women In Leadership Foundation. She is also "keeper of the brand". With chapters in 4 Canadian cities, the WIL online presence is an extremely intricate part of the Foundation's overall community outreach.
We conceived and built individual sites for each chapter, trained each chapter rep and provide continued support through the national head office site.
By giving the chapters some autonomy to construct their own content we have seen a considerable increase in online engagement; not only from the website(s) but from all social media outlets as well.
We also initiated, planned and constructed processes to make the social media engagement a turn-key solution for each chapter since all chapter members are volunteers.
In less than a year WIL has become the most robust online presence of all Canadian women-centric non-profits. (big round of applause :)

“I started Social Media Canada in 2008 to help others realize the power of Social Media to affect change. Since then so much has changed. Social Media is now used to inform, to condemn, to inspire, to do just about anything. There's a lot to know and I'm here to help you learn!”